


Fate’s A Bitch

by SilentMusiic



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Fluff, Kinda Canon-Compliant but not really, Multi, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentMusiic/pseuds/SilentMusiic
Summary: When you turn fifteen, Fate gives you two marks. On your left wrist, the first words your soulmate will say to you, on your right wrist, the last words they’ll say to you.As far as Richie Tozier is concerned, Fate is a bitch.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 226





	1. 1991

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my literal soulmate Kyrsten, who said a total of ten words to me which led to this. Love you babes!

As far as Richie Tozier was concerned, Fate was a fucking bitch. You’d expect the idea of soulmates to be a purely happy affair, at the ripe old age of fifteen, you find the one person you’re meant to be with, the person who fits with you just right and everything’s hunky fucking dory right? Wrong. See, you get to know what your soulmate’s first  and  last words to you were, the former being on your left wrist and the latter being on your right. Some unlucky people were on Fate’s bad side and they had the same string of words on each wrist, or even none at all.

Some days, Richie wished he was one of them. 

It’d be better than waiting to see if his best friend’s words matched with his. 

Richie’s left wrist pitifully read “This would be funny, if it weren’t so painfully idiotic,” beautifully reminiscent of the day he met his adorable little hypochondriac.

They had been eleven at the time, and in the dead of winter, Stan had ever-so-lovingly dared Richie to lick the metal swing set. Which went just as well as you’d imagine. One phone call later, Stan’s mom was on her way and Richie’s situation had attracted the attention of the two people that would flip both Richie’s and Stan’s world upside down. One of the boys was tall, with dark hair and light eyes, and seemed to observe the scene with a distanced expression. The other one was, well, short ...and pouty...and so fucking pretty. 

Then he opened his mouth.

_ “This would be funny, if it weren’t so painfully idiotic.” _

Richie snarked back with something that was meant to liken the boy to a chihuahua, but with his tongue stuck to metal, it just came out like a muffled bunch of syllables.

The boy went on to rant about the millions of germs on a public swing set and how gross the situation was and let’s get out of here, Bill, but by that point Stan had been talking to the other boy, Bill apparently, with heart eyes for a solid five minutes. Bill introduced Eddie and Stan attempted to speak for Richie, but it just led to more muffled insults being thrown around and suddenly, Richie was trying to argue without using his tongue, and Eddie seemed to have given up.

“God, you’re so disgusting, you...you...TRASHMOUTH!”

And, as strange as it seems, from that moment, Richie was done for.

After a removal that probably took longer than it should have, the four started actually talking and quickly became friends, though it was safe to say that Stan tended towards Bill, leaving  Richie with Eddie. 

They had been friends for four years now, and two years after the swing incident, they welcomed Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom, and Mike Hanlon to their merry band of misfits. 

Then the shit hit the fan in the most horrifying way possible. 

The summer of ‘89 is one that none of them want to remember.

They don’t talk about that summer anymore, but there’s a certain fear when one of them doesn’t pick up after a few calls. They don’t sleep well anymore.

Two years later, 1991 is finally a year of hope. 

Bill was the first to get his words, shocking them all when two sentences showed up on each wrist instead of one. Two different handwritings read “Thanks guys, but you shouldn’t have done that.” and “Don’t worry, he’s just a sucker for a dare,”. What shocked absolutely no one was that those were the exact words their own Mike Hanlon and Stanley Uris had first said to him. Bill kept his last words covered, as most people did. Considering it was the 90s, it would be reasonable for the boys to be concerned about being in the public eye together, but soulmates were a sort of sacred thing, no one dared to judge what Fate determined. 

Next was Beverly, and when she looked at her wrist to find not only “Oh, uh, sorry,” on her left wrist and “I love you too, Embers.” on her right, she charged down to their clubhouse and grabbed Ben by the collar of his shirt before planting a giant kiss on him. In front of all the other losers. When she pulled back from him, Ben was red as a tomato. He nearly fainted when Bev smiled down at him and said “Hiya soulmate.” So yeah, Fate was pretty kind to his friends.

But man, did Richie want to punch Fate right in the face for the words on his right wrist. In Eddie’s gorgeous script, it read, “Marry me, Trashmouth?”

And God, if that didn’t make Richie want to cry every time he saw it.

He was going to be so close to spending his life with his best friend, the love of his life, his soulmate, and it was going to be taken from him before he could see it through. 

So yeah, Fate was a fucking bitch.

To make matters worse, Eddie was getting his words tonight, and he only wanted Richie with him when he got them. He really would’ve said no if he didn’t love the boy so goddamn much and the thought didn’t make his heart skip a beat.

So now here he was, sitting with his potential soulmate on his potential soulmate’s bed waiting for said potential soulmate’s marks to appear. Which would be a lot easier to deal with if Eddie weren’t so goddamn fidgety.

“Richie what if I don’t get any words? What if I don’t have a soulmate at all and I’m doomed to die alone? What if I have two sets of the same words? I need my inhaler, Chee!” Eddie had started to rock slightly back and forth on his bed, only stopping when Richie grabbed his shoulders, cementing him in one place.

“You’re gonna have a soulmate, Eds-“

“Don’t call me Eds, Trashmouth-“

“I just know you will, you might be a bit of a hypochondriac, but you’re cute and smart and snarky. What’s not to love? If anyone’s getting a soulmate, Eddie Spaghetti, it’s you.”

Something indescribable crossed over Eddie’s eyes as Richie spoke, but the gaze slowly drifted to where his clock was ticking down the last thirty seconds beforehis birth time.

“I guess we’ll find out soon, huh?”

5

4

3

2

“Holy fuck that shit hurts!” Eddie gasped, his left hand clamping down onto his right wrist. The right mark always hurt considering it cemented your soulmate’s demise, a fact of life which caused an unimaginable pain, making the pain of receiving the mark seem like nothing. Eddie launched himself into Richie’s arms as the pain crawled through his wrist, a pain that Richie knew felt like someone was writing so deep onto your wrist that they were drawing blood. Richie couldn’t help but wrap his arms around the boy, holding him tight but not daring to look at his mark since it was a very private-

“What the fuck does “Says the one who looks like an angry chihuahua” mean?” 

Well fuck. 

“I mean in my experience it’s what you say to a short kid who says that your tongue being stuck to a metal swing set is idiotic.”

The room was silent for all of ten seconds before Eddie scrambled backwards and grabbed Richie’s left wrist, staring at the words written on the skin in his own writing.

“Richie, I...”

“It’s ok if you don’t want me as your soulmate, we can stay friends and continue our-“

“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WAS WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO SAY! THE FIRST THING YOU THOUGHT TO SAY TO ME WAS CALL ME AN ANGRY CHIHUAHUA?!” 

Richie was stunned into silence, staring at the boy before him who now wore a bright red blush across his cheeks and a dopey smile that betrayed his true feelings on the subject.

“You aren’t...disappointed it’s me?”

“Why the fuck would I be disappointed that it’s you? You’re my best friend whom I’ve had a crush on for four years.”

“Did...did you really just use the word ‘whom’ unironically?” 

“Shut up and kiss me already.”

Eddie reach forward, grabbing each side of Richie’s Hawaiian shirt, and tugged him down into a relatively chaste kiss. It was completely cliche, but Richie hadn’t ever felt so complete as when he was kissing Eddie. When the two finally pulled apart, Richie whispered against his soulmate’s lips.

“You stole that move from Bev and you know it.”

“You loved it, don’t act like you didn’t.”

“Mhmm, and since I can say it now, have I ever mentioned how much I love your ass in your short shorts? It’s really a service to humanity in general.” Before Eddie could do much more than blush, Richie pulled him back in for another quick kiss.

“You know the losers are going to freak the fuck out about us.” Eddie murmured as he curled up against Richie’s chest, finding a perfect sort of comfort in the other boy’s arms. 

“Eh, we got used to Stan, Mike, and Bill, they can get used to us. I’m pretty sure there’s a betting pool on when we’d start dating anyway...that’s what you want, right? Dating, romance, the whole enchilada?” Richie really wasn’t sure if his heart would hold up if Eddie said no at this point. He’d had just a bit of his beautiful boy and already he couldn’t live without him in his life. 

“No, I just kissed you for fun, of course I want this, Chee, dating, romance, the whole enchilada, with you.” He was wearing a sweet little smile that was almost nervous to say it, as if Richie could actually deny him now. “So, how long have you known?”

“Since I got them, I remembered what you said to me because you were pissed off and your nose was wrinkled all cute and shit and I couldn’t believe I fell for a boy who called me idiotic. I didn’t tell you because...” he hesitated, looking down at Eddie, his Eddie, who he was meant to spend the rest of time with, and he knew that he couldn’t hide how he felt for much longer, even if he would still be hiding the knowledge that the two of them would never get the happiness they wanted, “because I thought there was no way I could ever deserve to be your soulmate.”

Eddie pulled away from his position against Richie’s chest to stare up at him. It was as if he had slapped him, the look on Eddie’s face a mixture of anger and shock and just a hint of sadness. 

“No way you could deserve me? Why the fuck would you think that? You were basically already my other half, my best friend. I spent so much time hoping it’d be you, and when you didn’t show us your marks I just kept hoping and now here we are. You deserve me, Chee, you were the one I hoped for.”

Should anyone ask, Richie would deny that he cried. 

He’d deny that he cried as he held tight onto Eddie, his boyfriend, his soulmate.

He’d deny that they fell asleep in each other’s arms with tear-streaked cheeks.

There are few things Richie Tozier would admit about his relationship with his soulmate.

He would admit that the losers did freak out, Bev won the bet, and made off with $40.

He would admit that he and Eddie were a completely cliche couple. 

He would admit they loved each other.

He would admit they made a promise to stay close, even on opposite sides of the country, during college.

He would admit they broke that promise.


	2. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty-five years go by, and even the happiest of reunions can take devastating turns.

As far as Richie Tozier was concerned, Fate was a fucking bitch. Twenty-five years ago, Richie Tozier turned fifteen, and nothing had happened. He was a Blank. He had no soulmate. He liked to joke about it in his routines sometimes.

Sometimes he cried himself to sleep wishing he had someone to call his own.

Richie was a comedian, and as much as he hated it, that lovely quote that went “the people that make others laugh the most are the saddest” yada yada yada rainbow sunshine bullshit was so fucking true. He spent a solid eighty-five percent of his life wishing he were dead, and about a quarter of that he had spent in his goddamn backwater, homophobic hometown of Derry. 

Yeah, fuck that place ma-

Oh shit his phone was ringing.

“Yo?”

“Is this Richie Tozier?”

“Yes?”

“This is Mike Hanlon, from Derry.”

Richie felt his wrists start to itch at the name, but quickly brushed it off. Mike Hanlon, the name sounded familiar, the voice vaguely so, but that would happen considering that it had been two decades since he’d been in that hellhole.

“Name rings a bell, not getting much else. What can I do for you, Mikey Boy?”

“Do you remember making a promise? With six other kids? Twenty-seven years ago?”

The itch was coming in sharper now, as if it were building up to something, and Richie distinctly did not like that something because he had a feeling it was going to hurt like a motherfucker.

“Twenty-seven years ago I was a closeted bisexual in a town that wanted me dead so the idea of me having six friends doesn’t seem very likely. Now listen, man, I gotta go-“

“I’m sorry to do this Richie. You need to remember.  _Your soulmate’s name is Eddie Kaspbrak_. ”

Richie froze up at the name. No, he’d never heard that name before. 

  
So why did it...why did it strike him so horribly? He never knew an Edward, that name felt foreign in his mind, who the hell named their kid Edward other than Stephanie Meyer? The itch fully developed now, a sharp, piercing pain that felt like a knife carving his skin. He gripped his phone as tight as he could just go keep from dropping it, his hands were trembling and from what? Two words? A name? A name that belonged to warm eyes full of light and love God, when was the last time anyone had looked at him with love?  


A name, just a name, but one that belonged to someone who loved him. 

Suddenly he was eleven, watching the boy roll his eyes at him from where Richie  was attached to the swing set.

He was thirteen, fighting like hell to save the boy from...something. The thought sent a chill down his spine.

He was fifteen, pressing his lips against the boy’s and holding him close, with whispers of love the only sound between them.

He was eighteen, and murmuring platitudes to the boy, silent tears on their cheeks as they stared at college acceptance letters that placed them at opposite ends of the country.

He was nineteen, and he didn’t know the boy existed.

The boy. His boy. His perfect Eddie.

Not Edward, never Edward, Eddie.

  
_Eddie Kaspbrak._  
  


He could hear his voice, the tone that was constantly mixed with sarcasm and concern. Eddie was calling for him, pleading for him to come home. He called his name again and again and aga-

“Richie?”

“Mike.”

“I’m sorry I had to do that, I know it hurts to think about him, to feel the bond come back and know how much you’ve missed, I had to do the same thing to Bill and Stan so that they remembered, I know it’s painful but I just-“

“I’ll be back in Derry tonight.”

He hung up without another word. His cheeks were wet with tears, and the pain in his wrists had subsided. Glancing down, he could see the loopy script returning to his wrists, exactly where it belonged. The writing that tied him to his other half.

Eddie. Good God, how could he forget Eddie? His soulmate? His best friend. Richie remembered their promise, that they’d stay close, that they’d talk all the time. 

How did he forget him so easily?

The flight to Derry felt like a haze. Caught between a mixture of old memories returning and self-deprecating thoughts, his mind didn’t fully start operating properly again until he was standing outside of the restaurant Mike had said to meet at in a later call. Contrary to popular belief, Richie knew when he needed to apologize for his behavior. When he stepped out of the car, he found himself very obviously interrupting two people heavily making out.

The woman was tall and thin, with cropped red hair that just barely brushed against her shoulders. His mind almost instantly flashed to the girl that completed their group. Bev? This rush of memories was already giving him a headache...or maybe it was the constant stink of the town...either way, if it was her, then that man had to be...oh, there was no fucking way.

“Wow, you guys look amazing, what the fuck happened to me?”

The pair’s heads whipped towards him and two wide grins appeared on their faces. 

“Trashmouth!” Bev squealed, quickly wrapping Richie in a tight hug and earning a laugh from Ben.

“I missed...you...too!” Richie struggled for words as Bev’s hug tightened.

“Embers, let him go, he needs air.”

Richie gasped as Bev finally released him from her deceptively strong clutches, and he beamed at the soulmates’ reunion. 

“Not that I don’t love you guys, but I’m pretty sure there’s a short, whiny asshole waiting for me in there.” He pushed passed the two with relative ease, and merely a glance had to be shared between them before they were taking off after their childhood friend.

The restaurant was pretty nice inside, decorated with plenty of reds and golds, which pulled at Richie’s eye even though he was dead set on one thing and one thing only. 

That sweet, sweet, looks-like-a-dream-in-short-shorts-ass.

Oh there it is. 

The trio was turned completely around, Mike, Bill, and his adorable little angry chihuahua.

Being the dramatic asshole that he was, Richie really couldn’t resist the gravitational pull of the gong, just sitting there and waiting for someone to hit it...

Oops.

“This meeting of The Losers Club has officially begun!”

The joke earned Richie four laughs from the group, but when his eyes met that intense, dark gaze properly for the first time in twenty-two years, something clicked. Under the light, Richie could just barely see the tears glazing over Eddie’s eyes, but before he could make another joke, he had a small man pressed against his chest, just like he had all those years ago when Eddie has gotten his marks. 

“You fucking bastard.”

“I missed you, too?”

Eddie glared up at his soulmate, pouting just like the boy Richie left behind twenty-two years prior. Over the smaller man’s shoulder, Richie could see the group having their own reunions, Bill holding tight to Mike’s arm while they talked with Bev and Ben. The four who already had their time to be together again clearly giving Richie and Eddie their’s. Richie made a mental note to thank them later. 

Slowly, the glare melted from Eddie’s features and replaced itself with a warmth that had made Richie happy day after day before they forgot. Eddie held Richie’s face in his hands, pulling him closer with the intrinsic magnetism that only soulmates shared.

Then he felt the chill against his cheek.

Metal?

Richie reached up, pulling Eddie’s hand in his own and bringing it forward so that the horrid gold shone right before his eyes. 

“No...”

“Richie, please, I didn’t-“

“NO!”

He pushed Eddie’s hand away like it burned him, and backed away, ready to leave until-

Mike’s voice cut through the conflicting shouts in Richie’s mind. “Richie! You can’t leave! We need everyone here to defeat It!”

Then the fortune cookies started moving.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”


	3. 19–

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are more powerful than Fate.  
> Those things should be feared.

“Would you please just leave me alone?!”

Richie had a shadow he was trying to shake...How did they get here? From best friends to soulmates to...fighting. The creepy cookies plus the way Mike had obviously been micro-dosing for the last twenty-two years and now had some convenient ritual that was going to make everything magically ok was making his head spin, and Eddie trailing him relentlessly was not helping.

“No! Not until you listen to me, Richie!”

Even when he was yelling, Richie loved his voice...

Married, Tozier, he’s married. 

Keep walking. One foot in front of the other. The more distance between you, the less likely you are to turn around, scoop him up, and kiss him senseless.

“I don’t love her!”

Both sets of footsteps stopped.

Her?

“Eddie, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you’re gay. Why the fuck do you have a wife?” He didn’t dare turn around. Turning around would place him in those arms again. Turning around would make him fall in love with the one he was meant to love, rings be damned.

“I have a wife because the life I was living? That wasn’t my life,”

He was getting closer. Maybe he was getting louder. Maybe both.

“My life was waiting for me in Los Angeles. My life was living its own, thinking it had no one. My life wasn’t in New York. The life in New York belonged to Edward Kaspbrak. Edward Kaspbrak, who was a Blank. Who spent his childhood in a backwater town with a controlling mother and no friends. Who spent his life without Richie Tozier,”

Richie could feel Eddie’s arms winding around his waist. It would be so easy to fall into his embrace, let Eddie hold him tightly and let them be together. 

Eddie Kaspbrak was his soulmate.

But Eddie Kaspbrak was someone’s husband.

“No.” He muttered as he pulled away, turning and heading to the inn where he and the losers were staying, determined to let this matter continue, because goddamn it, if anyone was right in this case it was-

“Marry me, Trashmouth.”

No. 

No no no no no.

“Those are your words, right? Do you really want to leave now that I’ve said them? Marry me, Trashmouth!”

“Eddie stop it. Stop saying that.”

“MARRY ME, TRASHMOUTH!” 

“I CAN’T LOSE YOU AGAIN!”

Eddie stopped, staring at Richie like a deer in headlights. 

“Say something else...please...I can’t...”

He had never felt so weak in all of his life. He was weak for Eddie.

Always had been.

Probably always would be.

“Say something so I know I won’t lose you.”

“Chee...”

Richie wasted no time in pulling Eddie close, collapsing into a pile right there on the sidewalk. He gripped at Eddie’s shirt like a lifeline, as if it were the only thing saving him from drowning in the world around him. There were hot tears soaking into the fabric on Eddie’s shoulder.

“It’s not fair...it’s not fair that I lost twenty-two years with you. I could’ve loved you all that time, we could be living together somewhere, married with a kid like we always talked about. It took that from us. So please...please don’t say those words...It can’t take anything else from me.”

“I love you, Richie. I always have.” 

“I love you, too, Eds.”

*****

Richie felt it crawling in his veins. 

The pain settling in as that spider...claw...thing tore through Eddie’s chest.

That indescribable pain that he had always been told about.

The man he loved,

The man he lost,

Was dying in his arms. 

“Eddie? Eddie, c’mon baby, it’s gonna be okay, alright? I’ve got you, it’s gonna be okay don’t you dare leave me, I just got you back!”

Everything was so damn dark. He could barely see his soulmate five inches in front of him, leaning back and slowly, painfully, bleeding out. 

Richie needed a fucking miracle.

The pain was seeping in, covering his other senses as Eddie’s blood soaked his shirt. He refused to let go. If Eddie...

If Eddie was going to die, he was going to die with Richie by his side.

“Chee...”

“Don’t talk, baby, don’t talk.”

“Chee, I...I love you...you know that?”

“Of course I know, love.”

“Chee, it’s...it’s time it...it hurts so much.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I’m sorry. I...want to give you the life we were supposed to have together...I want you to...to answer a...question for me...”

“Don’t, Eddie, please.”

“Marry me, Trashmouth?”

There it was.

He was numb, all of the pain dissipating for the wave of static he could feel all over his body.

He could refuse.

He could just not say anything.

He could keep Eddie alive.

He would prolong the inevitable.

He would cause Eddie more pain.

He would hurt the only person he ever loved.

Eddie wanted to leave.

Eddie knew it was time. 

Eddie was waiting for relief.

“I’ll say yes when we get you out of here.”

Richie watched the smile on Eddie’s face fade away, dimming with the fire in his eyes.

The static went away.

The static was replaced by something unimaginable.

It was sharp and blunt and freezing cold and blazing hot all at once. 

His soul had been ripped in two.

Richie screamed.

The pain lasted for exactly twenty-five seconds.

As it all subsided, as Richie’s vision refocused, as the flame Eddie fanned sparked back to life in Richie, he pulled himself to stand. The shouts of the losers echoed in his mind. They needed him. 

He couldn’t bare to look at what was now the corpse of his soulmate. But if there was one thing he could do...

It was kill this fucking clown.

*****

There was something cathartic about watching the house on Neibolt Street crumble in on itself. 

Richie thought back to his best friend’s pained screams as he snapped his arm in a move that probably did more harm than good.

He thought of his boyfriend riding a little closer to him than usual on their bikes when they’d go passed.

He thought about the man in his arms, lifeless and cold. He didn’t feel like him anymore. He was warm and bright. Snarky and loving. He was life personified. 

He was dead.

And Richie himself would die before he let him be buried in the place that housed so many horrible memories.

The losers took their sixth member to the hospital. At some point the wounds had gone away, replaced by two long, vertical cuts on the inside of his forearms.

The doctor pronounced him dead on arrival. 

The doctor didn’t see the final cut across the top of the left wound.

Didn’t see the way that even the lesser wounds mocked them with It’s presence even now. 

The losers walked away, three with a new kind of pain etched into their hearts.

Richie didn’t feel the chill of the quarry’s water.

Richie didn’t feel the tears on his cheeks.

Or the embrace of four fellow survivors.

Or the calm of a walk alone.

Or the knife carving an old letter deeper into even older wood. 

Richie felt nothing until the last bit of the letter was carved into the kissing bridge for all to see and he was at the inn in his hometown for the last time.

Eddie was dead.

His soulmate was dead.

That final night was spent with tears in his eyes and screams for Fate to take him instead.

*****

“Richie!”

Why the hell were the losers waking him up now?

“Richie I swear to god, get up!”

If there was ever a time when he wanted to sink into his mattress, it was now. For the love of all that is holy, go away.

“C’mon, Trashmouth, I’m serious!”

Richie let out a loud groan before opening his eyes.

“What do you want-“

There was no way he wasn’t dreaming.

Hovering above him was someone he hadn’t seen in a long time, against a backdrop even farther gone. A boy he left behind twenty-two years ago.

“Eddie?”


	4. 1991

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are stronger than Fate.
> 
> Some things are stronger than those.
> 
> Fate rewards the strongest of them all.

The version of Eddie that was sitting on this bed was the same Eddie that launched himself into Richie’s arms, having just found out they were soulmates. This version of Eddie didn’t yet have stress lines on his face from the constant worry that would live with him into adulthood. This version of Eddie was alive. This version of Eddie was from September 3rd, 1991.

“I’m dreaming. You’re gone, I lost...why the fuck does my voice sound so fucking pubescent?!”

Eddie chuckled softly, pulling Richie into a hug.

“I’m serious, Eds! You’d think that in my own damn dream I’d have some ability to control how fucking squeaky I sound!”

“Babe, I hate to tell you this, but you sound pubescent because you...uh...are.”

Richie froze up and looked down at himself slowly, only to see that he was...

Oh no, he’s fifteen.

“HOLY FUCKING SHI-“

“Shut up and look at your marks, Trashmouth.”

Richie’s gaze drifted to the place where he was used to seeing “This would be funny if it weren’t so painfully idiotic,” but there was something majorly different.

A bright red line ran through the original words, and sitting above them in a script that was completely foreign to him was one simple word “Reset.”

“Reset?”

Eddie offered up his wrist for Richie to see, and the phenomenon repeated itself where Richie’s absolutely genius description of his soulmate was written on him.

“That’s not the only thing.”

Eddie pulled away from the embrace to show his right wrist as well. Richie refused to look at those words. The words that cemented Eddie’s death into reality.

“Chee, look, just trust me.”

Richie breathed a heavy sigh as he turned to look at the mark, only to have his eyes widen almost comically at the fact that Richie’s true last words to Eddie were completely gone. 

Instead, in Richie’s chicken scratch writing, were the words “Better than our first lives?”

The tears were welling in Richie’s eyes now, and looking up at Eddie, he could say the same thing of his soulmate. Richie lifted his right wrist, waiting for Eddie’s dying breath to still exist, waiting for Fate to be mocking him once again.

But it didn’t.

Richie had “This was the life I’ve always wanted.” in Eddie’s handwriting right where the words that cause so much pain used to be.

“Eddie...please tell me you remember-“

“Remember It? Remember chasing you down and...using your words against you? Remember dying? How could I ever forget?”

Richie went to speak but was almost instantly cut off by Sonia, god if there’s one thing he didn’t regret forgetting it was her, yelling upstairs.

“Eddie! Your...friends are here.”

Nothing was said between the two, but they understood each other perfectly.

They needed to see just how deep this new reality went.

Richie scrambled to Eddie’s window to make the typical journey down to his bike that was there from the...night before? 1991? Whatever, his bike was down there.

Eddie yelled a quick “Coming!” but made sure that Richie got down safely before running down his stairs to his front door.

And there they were.

All five of the other losers. 

Alive and miraculously young again.

“Hey Eddie, wanna go for a ride with your favorite people in the world?” Bev asked with a calm facade clearly covering the panic that all of them were trying to hide as well. She was stealing glances at Sonia, who simply nodded before Eddie was off with them. At some point, Richie had pulled up behind the group, ready to go as well.

The friends rode in relative silence until they got to their clubhouse, where they all promptly rushed down and started to freak the fuck out.

“D-Do you guys have them t-too?” Bill asked, still casting his gaze over to Stan every once in a while, most likely still in shock that the boy was actually there.

“Yeah. Reset, new words. Everything.” Richie muttered, his fingers laced tightly with Eddie’s and truthfully afraid to let go for fear of either waking up or losing him again. 

“Us too. Bev and I don’t have new words but that’s probably because...well, because of the larger elephants in the room.”

All eyes turned to Stan and Eddie.

“We died. We’ve been in this place since. It’s 1991.” Stan kept his gaze low, fitting himself snugly between Mike and Bill. 

“As far as we could tell, Fate is giving us another chance because we killed It.” Eddie whispered, the emotion of the moment finally manifesting into tremor as he held back the tears. “We...we were dead...you all weren’t here and...” He buried his face into Richie’s shoulder.

“Th-That’s n-not all that’s d-d-different.” Bill spoke up, looking between the losers.

“G-G-Georgie woke me up this m-morning.”

“Georgie’s alive?!” Mike looked up at his soulmate in a way that said they were having a silent conversation with looks alone.

“It’s like Pennywise never existed,” Stan finished for them, “he never killed Georgie, or me, or Eddie. We’re back to the last moment that he affected us. When Eddie,” he motioned to the boy in question with a nod of his head, “got his marks.”

“So this is it? We just...go on living?” Richie questioned, Eddie having snuggled into his arms throughout the conversation. It was easy to tell that the boy was still touch starved from the life he led in New York, and Richie certainly wasn’t complaining.

“We go on living the lives we were supposed to have.” Stan answered assuredly.

The seven looked around at each other.

Seven friends with the minds of forty year olds.

Seven friends who were young again.

Seven friends who had gone through hell for each other.

They went on.

Bev and Ben wouldn’t be able to wait, getting married the second they were out of college.

Eddie would catch the bouquet at their wedding, grumbling all the time that “just because I’m a bottom doesn’t mean I’m the girl in the relationship, Chee, we’re boyfriends, the point is that there isn’t a girl-“.

Richie would quiet him with a kiss, and propose a month later.

Stan, Bill, and Mike would move in together after college, happy to start their lives together at last.

Now, as the losers gathered at the Hanscoms’ cliche, two-story, white picket fence home as they did at least once a month now, they found themselves experiencing a happiness that was mixed with relief. 

They were free.   


So when the redheaded twins dashed by the table and the girl with brown curls and thick glasses trailed behind them, blissfully unaware of the parents who had lived a very different version of this year already, they couldn’t feel luckier for the life they were living.

As far as Richie Tozier was concerned, Fate?

Eh, she’s pretty cool.


End file.
